


Tell Me You Will Be Again

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [191]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, High School Reunion, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 11:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16701430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The only thing louder than the music was Loki’s sense of regret.





	Tell Me You Will Be Again

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: School reunion. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

The only thing louder than the music was Loki’s sense of regret.

That, and his burgeoning hangover.

It’d been a long time since he drank so much so fast that he felt sick when he should’ve felt high, his head like a lead weight instead of a happy pink cloud of oblivion. But then, it’d been a long time since he had only beer and cheap wine to choose from.

 _Cash bar!_  the official invites had said, clad up in the godawful school colors of green and gold. _See old friends! Make new ones! Trot out your best lies about how happy/successful/fulfilled you are. It’ll be like Facebook in real life!_

Ok, so maybe that last bit had been only implied. But just barely.

He rubbed his eyes and leaned against the cigarette machine, kicking himself for the tenth time in an hour for ever thinking that coming back here was a good idea. He’d spent each waking moment of high school dying to be anywhere but there, anywhere than this small, self-satisfied town, and yet what had he done when he’d gotten that e-vite? Immediately click _I’m attending_ and hit send.

He was a sentimental fool, that was the problem. Had been then, still was now. Still hid it like a fucking champ.

Except he wasn’t feeling like a champ at that particular moment, unless champ somehow equalled emotionally gutted and sad. Because the one person he’d come back for wasn’t there, the love of his meandering life, was nowhere to be found in the warm cavern of the bar the class of ‘96 had taken over, ten years down the line.

They’d broken up a couple of years into college, he and Thor, but Loki hadn’t known it would stick; they’d done a half dozen times before, at least. They’d made a practice of it, actually: of having big blowouts at somebody’s party or in the parking lot at school in Thor’s beat-up truck or even during calculus, once, much to Mrs. Seager’s chagrin. They bellowed (Thor) and they railed (Loki) and then stormed away from each other, swearing to never again cross each other’s path.

And then they’d have the most amazing make-up sex, Thor lapping apologies between Loki’s thighs and Loki biting them into Thor’s shoulders until they were both panting for it and Thor would hold him when he came, cling to him sweet and tight, empty himself in Loki’s body and turn from muscle into warm honey gush and say all kinds of ridiculous shit that 18 year olds do not say:

 _I love you_  
_I’ll never leave you  
You’re the brightest, most beautiful thing in my life_.

Never mind that Thor was threadbare, the oldest son in a family of six, his family always hemmed in close, their expectations forever cradled like boulders on his shoulders, no room to choose his own path. Never mind that Loki’s parents had too much money and not enough sense, that they left him home alone all the time and recast their abandonment as trust, as maturity, as the certainty that Loki had a good head on his shoulders and would never do anything dangerous or unwise.

 _And at least_ , his father had said once, a Scotch-laced smile on his face, _I know there’s no danger of you getting some girl pregnant. The one big plus of having a gay son._

It was no wonder then, when he and Thor had found each other--paired up in 11th grade bio by random chance--they’d latched onto each other and held on way too hard; more smothering, sometimes, than love.

So they’d break up boy howdy and crash back together, tearing at each other’s clothes and saying things they were too young to mean and finding solace in the other’s eyes, in the mad, sweet scramble of sex.

That last break-up, then, hadn’t felt to Loki like the last. More like part of their regular routine.

Except he’d been three states away and Thor had been really awful on the phone, each word out of his mouth cutting and cruel. All these years later, Loki couldn’t remember what the fuck they’d been fighting about but gods knew he’d never forget the tone of Thor’s voice, all the golden sunshine gone and in its place, a river choked up with ice.

 _I’ve had it with you_ , Loki remembered him saying. _Why do you call me when you’re like this?_

 _Like what?_ he’d sneered in return. He’d been drinking. He was probably drunk. He’d been drunk a lot in those days.

_Like you’re a cynical, world-weary dick who doesn’t give a fuck about anything. That’s not you._

_Maybe it is. You don’t know. You haven’t seen me in ages. Maybe this is who I am now._

_Is that what this about? Lo, I explained that. I’ve got a midterm next week that’s gonna kick my ass if I don’t go all in this weekend._

_You always have a test._

_Yeah, well, some of us have to keep our grades up._

_Oh, fuck me, your grades. Jesus, Thor. You’re not a kid anymore. Do what you want to for once instead of what you think you should._

A silence, a low kind of static.

_That is what I want to do. Stay here, I mean. This class is important; I have to do more than just pass it if I want to get into that 400-level seminar next term in--_

_Oh,_ god _!_ Loki had said, burying his face in his drink. _You’re so boring. You’re so goddamn fucking boring, Thor, do you know that? So fucking straightlaced._

_I’m not talking to you anymore tonight._

_No, of course you’re not. God forbid we have an actual conversation._

_This isn’t a conversation_ , Thor had growled, his voice caught between exasperation and fury. _This is you being a dick because you can. Because you’re pissed at me. Again. Always, Loki. I swear, you’re always--_

Loki hadn’t bothered to answer. He’d simply hung up.

And never heard from Thor again.

Oh, he’d left messages on Thor’s machine for a month, sent a dozen pleading emails, shipped off a flurry of increasingly pathetic letters. But for all the answer he got, he might as well have been writing to the moon.

He’d walked around campus stunned, a big part of his life gone in a snap, and for the life of him, he didn’t know why. They’d had way worse fights than that, ones that cut deeper, got louder, and that, _that_ was what Thor chose to go out on? Some bullshit pedestrian spat over him not coming up for the weekend?

What the hell, Loki’d thought then, still kind of thought now. What the hell.

That Christmas, he hadn’t gone home; his parents had been winter-ing in Belize. So the next time he was in their dull little hometown, it was summer and Thor was off on his uncle’s dry dusty ranch working and the worst part was that Loki had been relieved that he was gone, that there was no chance they’d accidentally run into each other somewhere and have to have it awkwardly out.

Another school year came, another Christmas, and then it was easier to throw himself into other people’s beds and forget all about Thor.

Which of course he hadn’t. Not for one stupid second. Why the hell else would he be here, back in the hometown he hated in a bar full of people he’d never liked all in the hope of getting one more chance to see Thor. One more chance to make it right. Whatever that looked like.

Oh, no. He knew.

He’d imagined it a hundred times on the way out, on the plane, in the rental car, between the four stolid walls of his hotel room: Thor catching sight of him across the room and making a beeline for him, cupping his face in those weatherbeaten hands and whispering as he drove Loki towards the nearest wall and pressed him there, pretty as a picture:

 _I love you_  
_I should never have left you_  
_You were the brightest, most beautiful thing in my life  
Tell me you will be again_

But he’d been there an hour and there’d been no sign of Thor. Though everyone and their brother had asked Loki about him. There’d been a dozen variations of _You guys aren’t together?!_ and _I haven’t seen him in years_ and _Goddamn, dude. What happened?_ and shit, no wonder he’d drunk so much. His tolerance was for shit these days.

 _Another five minutes_ , he told himself, squinting through the crowd to get a grok at the big, neon clock. _Another five minutes of this shit and I’m gone_.

He stared longingly at the old, empty machine, long stripped of its tobacco-y goodness. Technically, he’d quit and technically, he didn’t want to start again but technically he was two shakes from his nerves snapping so fuck it, he wanted a cig. Good way to burn his last few minutes in this place, anyway; a final fiery salute to his ill-placed optimism and last, very last shred of hope.

He only had to ask three people before he found someone feeling generous with their lighter and smokes.

 _Gotta go outside, though_ , the guy said, pointing towards the back. _Can you believe you can’t smoke inside? And in this goddamn state? The whole place was built on tobacco, you know._

Yes, Loki did know; yes, Loki had been raised here; yes, Loki was desperate enough to nod and smile and say _y’all_ until the guy finally held out his soft pack. Then it was a beeline, then it was an open door, then it was the evening breeze and the wet smell of the alley, the gutter than ran along back. He scooted away from the building and sat cross-legged on the sidewalk just across the way, the neat dark press of his tight jeans be damned.

The sun had just set and the streetlights were popping on, little kicks of light in the slow-rising dark. Loki stuck the cig in his mouth and sighed at the click of the Bic and drank down the bitter taste of high school, shitty beer and cheap tobacco, the faint, pounding sounds of Boyz II Men, the shouts of people happier than he was, people content with what the future held, with the past.

Why the fuck had he come back here? Why the hell had he let himself hope?

There were tears on his face now, stupid ones, sentimental. The sort of tears he didn’t shed anymore, hadn’t for a long, long time. He didn’t bother to brush them away.

He took his time, or tried to, but too soon the flame was kissing the filter and the ground around him was littered with ash. But he sat there outside the bar a little longer, watching the stoplight on the corner flick from green to yellow and red like an electronic firefly, feeling the burn in his lungs and the sting of grief on his face.

He wanted to go home. He wished he’d never come.

Just then, right then, he couldn’t imagine going back.

 _I love you_ , Loki whispered into the wind, words that curled up like smoke.

 _I can’t believe I let you leave me._  
_You were the brightest, most beautiful thing in my life, Thor, my darling  
Tell me you will be again_

 _Now I see that my first mistake_ , somebody said from behind him, _was bothering to look for you inside at all. I should’ve known better. I should’ve started in the margins and worked my way in_.

The voice was the same. A little deeper, maybe, but it still had that soft twine. Loki felt his heart jump. Couldn’t bring himself, though, to look back.

_What was your second, then?_

_Hmmm. Lot of competition for that one. Apparently I didn’t RSVP. The Crouch sisters, they were not happy with me. Made me cough up twenty bucks at the door._

Loki stood up. He still couldn’t look. Was grateful, all at once, for the darkness. He said:

_I don’t blame them. You couldn’t click one button in an email?_

_Maybe. But I couldn’t make up my mind. Not until tonight. And then I figured it was worth it, pissing somebody off, if there was even an off chance I’d see you._

_Well,_ Loki said, a word that tasted wet. _Here I am._

 _I know_ , Thor said. _Hi, Lo_.

They reached for each other across the stretch of ten years and kissing was so much easier than talking; it was so much simpler to say _I’m sorry_ with soundless sweeps of tongue, with a clutch of hands, with the warm, perfect press of a long-remembered body pressed up perfect and close and Loki knew in his heart of hearts it wasn’t this easy, it couldn’t be; too much had happened, too much lay already unsaid. They’d have to talk sometime, have to sit down like grown men and hash it out, but now, on the sidewalk with ash at their feet, that sometime seemed far, far away.

 _Come back to my hotel_ , Loki said between kisses, his fingers caught in the loops of Thor’s belt. _Thor, please_.

A smile, broad and perfect, a mouth that tasted of flat beer and too many mints. _Yes. Yes._

Thor said it again when he was buried inside, when Loki’s head had fallen back, his belly already sticky, his cock doing its damnedest to rise again: _Yes,_ he murmured. _Oh, Loki, honey. Yes. You can take all of me. Your body remembers how. Yes, it does. Oh, god. Look at you._

It was as if no time had passed, a lifetime had, having Thor fuck him in that big, soft bed. He was 18 again and he was almost 30 and in was in love and he couldn’t remember what love felt like and Thor’s back was bowing in an old telltale shape and god help him, Loki was home again.

 _I love you_ , Thor said in Loki’s ear in the long, lovely moments after, when he was still tucked up inside.

_You don’t know me, darling. It’s been a long time._

_Not that long._ Thor nuzzled his neck. _I knew where to find you, didn’t I?_

Loki laughed. _Sure, after you looked everywhere else._

_All right. Fair point. But at least I knew where to look._

In the morning, they’d have to look each other in the eye. In the morning, Loki would be hungover in more ways than one. In the morning, there would be apologies and confusion and a sense of shared past and they would say foolish things, both of them, make promises they weren’t sure they could keep. It wasn't as easy as a quick fuck, everything that had gone wrong between them; in the morning, they'd have to get their shit straight.

But that was then, the future, and this was the glorious now and the now for Loki, for the moment, was more than enough.

 _You’re the best and most beautiful thing that ever happened to me_ , Thor said later as they slipped towards sleep, his words no more than a whisper. _The most infuriating. The most fucking confounding. The most unforgettable, too._   _God, Loki. God. I've missed you._

Loki kissed the crown of Thor’s head and drew him closer, wound their legs together like ivy. _Will you do something for me tonight?_

_Hmm? What’s that, honey?_

_Don’t let me go, all right?_

Thor sighed, pleased and put upon. _Only_   _if you'll do the same for me._

 _Well_ , Loki said, hiding his grin in Thor's hair, the swell of sudden tears,  _all right. But just for tonight_.

**Author's Note:**

> Started this in a timely manner this morning but it wanted more attention than I could give it then. So I have returned.


End file.
